Interview: Microsoft and Fortumo team up to offer mobile payments to developers

While everyone here has played a game or used an app that offers some kind of in-app-purchase (IAP), most of us probably don’t give the mobile payment systems that work behind the scenes much thought. And yet developers certainly have to consider mobile payment systems if they’re going to accept payments from users.

At GDC last week, we had the opportunity to speak with Rain Rannu, the Co-Founder of Fortumo Ltd. Fortumo provides mobile payment services for Windows Phone 7.5 and 8, Windows 8 and RT, and several other mobile platforms. They’ve recently teamed up with Microsoft to offer an exciting deal for developers who sign up to use Fortumo with their Windows products by the end of May.

Head past the break for more details and our video interview!

Mobile payments made easy

Fortumo describes itself as the single most developer-friendly mobile payments provider. Basically, the company allows developers to sign up for its service, integrate their API into the platform of their choice (Windows Phone, Windows 8, Android, Nook, HTML5, etc. – everyone but iOS), and start accepting mobile payments without expending much time or energy. Fortumo receives a percentage from each IAP, but otherwise there are no setup or monthly fees to worry about.

The Fortumo service adds carrier billing (as opposed to credit card billing) to games and apps and works in over 80 countries. Because credit cards aren’t very common in countries like Brazil and Japan, carrier billing removes that barrier towards accepting payments. Even if the purchase is being made from something other than a mobile device, it can still be billed to the user’s mobile carrier.

For an individual developer, manually setting up carrier billing in every country they want to sell their app in would be prohibitively difficult to do. But integrate Fortumo and it’s all taken care of for you.

Special offer for Windows Phone and Windows 8 developers

Microsoft and Fortumo really want Windows Phone and Windows 8 developers to embrace the Fortumo mobile payment system. For that reason, any developer who signs up and integrates in-app payments for Microsoft’s mobile platforms between now and May 31st, 2013 will receive free payment processing for six months. Neither Microsoft nor Fortumo will take any cut from the in-app purchases during this time – only the phone carriers themselves get a cut. Find out more about this offer at Fortumo.com/windows8.

Game developers and the future of Fortumo on Windows Phone

Rain Rannu of Fortumo

Fortumo’s payment services have only become available on Windows Phone and Windows 8 within the last couple of months, and as such we haven’t seen any Windows Phone games that use the service yet. But several are in the works, so it’s only a matter of time.

A few game and app developers who already use Fortumo for their IAPs on Android other platforms:

This is great and natural way to be billed on a mobile phone app...in India most of ppl dont have credit cards, the success of Nokia and symbian in India is because local developers have tied up with carriers and ppl can download .jar games off carriers mobile site... WP doesnt support it as off now...and unfortunately this article wont help as Furtomo doesnt have India in its 73 countries list...